The Thing About Heroes
The Thing About Heroes is the tenth episode in season four of . Synopsis The clues in Bonasera's puzzle lead Mac back to Chicago, where he must confront a traumatic event from his youth. Bonasera also discovers that her admirer is directly connected to the case. Plot With Mac in Chicago hunting the 333 caller, the rest of the team heads to the subway to investigate the death of train operator Kevin Carmichael, whose body was found slumped in the broken window of his train. The CSIs and Flack are in for a surprise when the doors slam shut and the train springs into action, taking them all for a ride save for Danny, who stepped briefly onto the platform to get his kit. Danny runs to a control box only to find an MP3 player strapped to it, controlling the train. Danny hurls a rock at it and disables it just before the train crashes into a sitting car. When the CSIs get off the train, Flack notices they're at 33rd Street--on the 3 train. Stella realizes it's the work of Mac's stalker. In Chicago, Mac searches the Tribune Building and finds a hanging decomposed body in one of the rooms, along with a hangman puzzle, with the letters of the alphabet above it--save for the letters that spell out "coward." He fills in Chicago PD Detective Brennan on the 333 caller and the clues that led him to Chicago, but she reminds him he has no jurisdiction in the Windy City. While the CSIs work the Carmichael case, Chief Sinclair sends Flack to Chicago to keep an eye on Mac. In the lab, Adam shows Danny how the MP3 player worked, and points out a site on the internet where the saboteur picked up the technical know-how to program the MP3 player to do hijack the train. In the morgue in Chicago, Brennan tells Mac the dead man was in his mid-twenties and died thirty years ago of a gunshot wound to the stomach. His body was buried and dug up. Mac calls an old friend, Jimmy and meets up with him. He recalls Bobby O'Toole, the man who beat Jimmy's brother Will to death. Mac accuses Jimmy of being the 333 stalker, but Jimmy denies it and tells Mac to stay away from him. After Jimmy leaves, Mac picks up his discarded cigarette butt and Flack arrives. Mac fills him on what happened thirty years ago: sixteen-year-old Will was making deliveries for a mobster, allowing his fourteen-year-old brother Jimmy and his friend--Mac--to tag along. But a delivery to Bobby O'Toole--who lived in apartment 333--went terribly wrong, and Jimmy and Mac witnessed Bobby beating Will to death. Jimmy pulled a gun out of Bobby's drawer but it got knocked out of his hand; Mac picked it up but was unable to shoot Bobby. Mac gets the DNA report on the cigarette from Stella: the blood is a filial match to the blood on the puzzle pieces and the DNA on the MP3 player. Mac recalls Will and Jimmy had a younger brother: Andy. Back at the lab, Stella studies the puzzles, disturbed. Suddenly, she recalls a puzzle piece she found at Drew Bedford's apartment after she brought the first puzzle to him matched not the first puzzle but the second. She puts it together: Drew is the 333 stalker. She confirms it when partial prints off the gifts he's given her match the prints on the MP3 player. And when she calls Mac to inform him of her findings, he then deduces that Drew Bedford is Jimmy's younger brother Andy. Mac and Flack return to New York and, along with Stella and Danny, prepare to storm Drew's apartment. Sinclair joins them. While Mac scours the wine racks, Drew knocks him unconscious. Mac awakens in a chair surrounded by lasers. Drew tells him if he trips the lasers, a gun will fire at his head, and promises the same will happen to whoever walks through the door to save him. Drew calls him a coward, saying that he could have saved his brother if he'd fired the gun. He shows Mac a newspaper article on his heroics after the drug bust, questioning Mac's status as a "hero." The team works frantically to find Mac, consulting a playlist on the MP3 player, which leads them to a forgotten subway tunnel. Flack pulls an ace out of his sleeve: Jimmy. Jimmy calls Drew and bursts into the room. The shotgun fires into his chest and Drew runs for him. Mac sets off the laser as Drew crosses in front of the gun and it hits Drew. Mac takes him down with a shot to the arm. Jimmy is unharmed because he was wearing a bulletproof vest, and Drew's wound isn't fatal. The family has lost enough, Mac tells Flack. Cast Main Cast *Gary Sinise as Mac Taylor *Melina Kanakaredes as Stella Bonasera *Carmine Giovinazzo as Danny Messer *Anna Belknap as Lindsay Monroe *Hill Harper as Sheldon Hawkes *Eddie Cahill as Don Flack Guest Cast * Robert Joy as Sid Hammerback * Kerr Smith as Drew Bedford * Eddie Driscoll as Hal Weston * Erin Daniels as Renee Brennan * Mykelti Williamson as Chief Sinclair * Frank Grillo as Jimmy Davis * Walker Curry as 14 Year Old Mac * Dave Marlin as 14 Year Old Jimmy * Houston Luke Hooker as 16 Year Old Will * Bryan Becker as 20 Year Old Bobby * Garrett Ryan as 6 Year Old Andy/Drew * Jon Lee Brody as Student * Ryan Hartford as Pedestrian * Chris Krauser as NY Pedestrian * Joseph Mazurk as Creepy Guy in Hoodie See Also